Just throwing a late night thought out there. Has anyone ever thought of the SCAA being able to offer student visas for various training certifications? I haven't heard of any organization or company that has the ability to do this, it would probably be possible, and I cant think of a better place to start with the SCAA/BGA/Roasters guild/etc. If a culinary arts school can do it why cant the coffee industry?

I have no idea what it would actually take to do this with the government... but I would think it would help to standardize coffee preparation world wide, promote coffee as a profession, increase awareness, and not to mention... increase membership...

Coffee Lab International does a lot of this. Mane Alves (who is currently all over Asia teaching Q classes) makes a huge effort to bring international interns to his SCAA certified lab to learn about all aspects of coffee.

I think in order to make it worthwhile for the SCAA/BGA/RG, the certification programs would have to be expanded into a much more comprehensive and time consuming endeavor. Hopefully we're headed in that direction!